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San Francisco Giants bullpen

The Gritty San Francisco Giants Keep Plugging Along

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The 2014 baseball season hasn’t been one where everything has broken right for the San Francisco Giants. They got mediocre work from rotation ace Matt Cain and then lost him for the season. Second baseman Marco Scutaro has never gotten his back healthy. First baseman Brandon Belt hasn’t really developed as a hitter and now he’s got a persistent concussion. By rights, San Francisco should be on the outside looking in.

Maybe that’s where things will end up, but after four-plus months, the Giants are still dogging the high-priced Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West, only 3 ½ games out coming into Saturday’s games. San Francisco is in a three-way dogfight with the Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals for the two wild-card spots. How has Bruce Bochy continued to keep the Giants in the hunt for a playoff berth and possible third World Series title in six years?
The foundation of San Francisco’s pitching dominance in their championship runs of 2010 and 2012 wasn’t so much starting pitching—though the rotation was obviously very good—it was the bullpen. And the same holds true in 2014.
SanFranciscoGiantsCloser Sergio Romo went through inconsistencies and lost his job (add that to the list of SF woes), but Bochy simply plugged Santiago Casilla into the role and the 34-year-old simply changed from being one of the game’s best setup men to one of its best closers. It’s not hard to envision Casilla being to this October what Koji Uehara was for the Boston Red Sox last October—the setup reliever who gets his shot to close and turns into someone unhittable.
Nor has the depth suffered because of Casilla’s promotion. Jeremy Affeldt and Jean Machi each have ERAs in the 1s, and situational lefty Javier Lopez is at 2.10. Whatever challenges the Giants have, this ironclad fact remains-if you don’t have the lead after five, you’re in serious trouble. This bullpen is second in the NL in ERA and just comes at you in waves.
San Francisco ranks seventh in the league in starters’ ERA, and while it’s not great, Cain’s troubled year could have made it a lot worse. The Giants have been saved by Tim Hudson. The veteran, formerly of the Oakland A’s and Atlanta Braves, has a 2.74 ERA and has made up for Cain and the fact Tim Lincecum isn’t ever going to be anywhere close to his Cy Young days again.

Madison Bumgarner, the talented young lefty, has been consistent all year and has 13 wins with a 3.22 ERA. Ryan Vogelsong has been spotty, but serviceable with a 3.77 ERA. The Giants made a move at the July 31 trade deadline to get Jake Peavy from the Red Sox, but Peavy is on a hard-luck year, with only one win. And his 4.73 ERA tells you he’s not shutting anyone down to begin with.
Collectively, a manageable starting rotation and superior bullpen has produced a good enough staff to carry an offense that ranks in the middle of the National League. The Giants hit home runs—they’re fifth in the NL—but they don’t drive the ball in the alleys consistently and don’t keep a steady flow of baserunners. The team ranks in the NL’s bottom third in both doubles and on-base percentage.
Hunter Pence has been the team’s best offensive player, leading the club with 15 homes runs and a stat line .345 OBP/.472 slugging. Michael Morse also has 15 homers, and Pablo Sandoval gone deep 14 times.
Centerfielder Angel Pagan has been able to set the tone for the offense, hitting .307. And while Buster Posey isn’t going to be in the MVP conversation, his .350/.439 stat line continue to mark him one of the game’s most productive catchers.
All of this is enough to make it easy to understand why the Giants are a competitive team. But it seems like it should be more along the lines of Braves/Reds competitive, where it’s still an uphill climb to make the playoffs. And as noted, maybe that’s where San Francisco ends up by season’s end. But for now, let’s give a lot of credit to Bochy and the organization. They’re outgunned financially by the Dodgers, but are hanging in for a division title and at the very least in position to steal a wild-card spot.

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MLB Coverage: San Francisco Keeps Rolling

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The San Francisco Giants keep on ticking. They don’t shovel out money like their NL West rival, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the Giants have had some problems to overcome in the early going. But as we hit mid-May, it’s San Francisco who’s atop the division, their 23-16 record narrowly leading Arizona and Colorado. Today we’ll take a closer look at how the champs have started the year and what needs to change for the better if a third World Series title in four years is going to be viable.

In a nutshell, this is the 2013 Giants…

  • *It’s the offense that’s again playing an understated role in the winning
  • *The deep bullpen is again outstanding, making it imperative for opponents to be ahead by the sixth inning
  • *So far the starting pitching is letting them down, with a mixed prognosis the rest of the way

San Francisco’s run-scoring capability doesn’t get a lot of media attention, but it was a key factor in keeping them in the race much of last year until they finally shook the Dodgers in September. This year’s Giants are tied for third in the National League in runs scored—tied with no less than St. Louis, whose offensive prowess has never been doubted.

Just like last year, Buster Posey is putting up the numbers and with a stat line of .388 on-base percentage/.504 slugging, the catcher is positioning himself for a run at a second straight MVP award. Pablo Sandoval is at .358/.493, and Hunter Pence is slugging .500 with seven home runs, showing he’s gone past just making motivational speeches and into producing at the plate.

The Giants are also getting solid work from postseason hero Marco Scutaro. I was a little concerned that Scutaro might be one of these players who gets overhyped after a big playoff showing—he was NLCS MVP and turned it into a nice new contract—but Scutaro has a .357 OBP and continues to get the job done defensively at second base. Gregor Blanco is similarly productive at getting on base, and a big surprise has been the bat of shortstop Brandon Crawford. Mostly in the lineup for his glove, Crawford is slugging .474.

When San Francisco gets leads, they turn it over to a bullpen whose 2.72 ERA is tops in the National League. Manager Bruce Bochy rolls out anyone from Jose Mirajes to Chad Gaudin to Santiago Casilla to Javier Lopez, all of whom have ERAs ranging from 1.27 to 2.89. Then throw in Jeremy Affeldt at a solid 3.24, and seal the deal with Sergio Romo, who’s closed 12 of 14 save opportunities. The Giants’ pen overall has nailed down 76% of its save chances, better than the league average of 67%. The only downside is that Casilla is dealing with a cyst on his knee and is out for the time being, but it shouldn’t be a long-term situation.

It’s the starting pitching that’s the concern right now. While Madison Bumgarner has been Cy Young-worthy, with a 2.18 ERA in eight starts, there’s no consistency behind him. Matt Cain got off to a rocky start, Ryan Vogelsong has been awful and Tim Lincecum has been up-and-down.

We can start with the good news—Cain is clearly turned back around. His ERA hit a peak of 7.15 in mid-April and has come down each of his last four starts, the most recent two being brilliant shut-down efforts against Atlanta and Los Angeles. But there’s no sign of recovery for Vogelsong, even though we can safely allow that his 7.78 ERA will come down. And I think you have to be concerned about Lincecum. While he’s back to showing he can be a stable part of a big-league rotation—something he clearly was not for most of 2012—he’s not anywhere close to being the Cy Young-caliber starter of his heyday. In eight starts, Lincecum has a 4.07 ERA and has been a yo-yo throughout. What’s concerning is there’s nothing to suggest that will change, and if Vogelsong has finally hit the end of the line the Giants’ rotation will be short of depth.

San Francisco can keep in the race and even win the NL West if the offense keeps producing, the bullpen keeps locking down and Bumgarner and Cain roll on as an elite 1-2 punch in the rotation. But if it stops there, they would be vulnerable to Arizona, whose lurking and maybe even the Dodgers if they get healthy and cohesive. That’s the bad news. The good news is that Bochy has always gotten the most out of his roster, so any team that pushes past Frisco is going to earn it.

AROUND THE NATIONAL LEAGUE

It’s not surprising, but the New York Mets have started to drift off the pace in the NL East after hanging a close fourth in the early going. The Mets are now 14-22 and their team ERA is the worst in the National League. Question—how bad do your 2 thru 5 starters have to be for your ERA to be this bad when Matt Harvey is unhittable and you work in a pitchers’ park? Jonathan Niese, Dillon Gee and Shaun Marcum have been atrocious.

We covered Milwaukee in last week’s MLB coverage, part of a three-team look at those chasing St. Louis in the NL Central. For now, cross the Brewers off the list. They’re taking it on the chin from the Cardinals, Reds and Pirates because this is another team whose pitching is awful. When previously reliable eighth-inning man Tom Gorzelanny went on the disabled list it got worse.

NL West Report: San Francisco’s Back In The Race

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What had to happen finally did happen, and it’s that the Los Angeles Dodgers have come back to earth and the race is on in the NL West. San Francisco, at 30-24, is coming off a week where they first won a series against Arizona, then took advantage of playing the Chicago Cubs and delivered a three-game sweep. Coupled with a slump by the Dodgers, Frisco is back within three games of the lead and there’s no reason to think this is just a flavor-of-the-week type thing.

Doing with pitching has been the San Francisco way in recent years and the 2012 is the same, with the third-best ERA in the National League counteracting the negative effects of an offense that’s better than just four NL teams. But the ’12 staff is doing it in spite of a terrible first 2 ½ months from Tim Lincecum and a season-ending injury to closer Brian Wilson. The Giants were known for the bullpen depth and it has paid off in spades this year. Santiago Casilla stepped into the closer’s role and has nailed 14/15 save chances with a 1.54 ERA. Since Casilla was already one of the NL’s top setup men this wasn’t much of a surprise. What’s been critical is that his replacements have been excellent. Clay Hensley’s ERA is a buck-77, Jeremy Affeldt’s at 2.55 and Sergio Romo is a surreal 0.51. The basic principle of beating the Giants remains—you better do it in six.

And even with Lincecum struggling, getting a lead off the starters is still not easy. While we can certainly point out Matt Cain having another stellar season or Madison Bumgarner continuing to be reliable, or Ryan Vogelsong showing last year was no fluke, let’s single out Barry Zito. The lefty has tapped into a fountain of youth somewhere and is 5-2 with a 2.98 ERA. Given how little was expected of the man on the 10th anniversary of his 2002 Cy Young Award in Oakland, it’s fair to say that Zito has covered for Lincecum to this point.

Offensive depth remains a substantial problem. The burden of carrying the lineup falls on Buster Posey and Melky Cabrera. The latter’s .413 on-base percentage and .548 slugging are one of the great revelations in all of baseball thus far. Not only can that not keep up—even though Cabrera is a good baseball player who will have a good year—but the drop-offs from the haves to the have-nots in this order are dramatic. While San Fran has benefitted from a nice year from Angel Pagan in center (.354 OBP) and can hope for Brandon Belt to improve at first (good plate discipline for the kid turns a .230 batting average into a .347 OBP), there’s no reason to think Joaquin Arias, Emmanuel Burriss, Brandon Crawford or Gregor Blanco will be anything but huge liabilities. Therefore the return of third baseman Pablo Sandoval from the DL this month will be a badly needed shot in the arm. Sandoval, one of the best offensive third baseman in the NL, had a .357/.537 OBP/Slugging line when he went out and he’s got the pop to make scoring runs a little easier.

Ultimately though, when you pitch like San Francisco, you’re going to be okay for the long haul. As last year demonstrated, it doesn’t make you immune to a September slump, but you’ll at least have a shot. That’s what the Giants have now and they won’t disappear any time soon.

Around the rest of the NL West…

LA Dodgers (33-21): I’m thinking right now of the 18-point lead the Boston Celtics built on the Miami Heat in the NBA playoffs last night. As a Celts fan, I knew it was great, but I also knew deep down it wouldn’t last and that eventually we needed to make some plays to win a tough one. That’s the mindset Dodger fans have to be in right now. They enjoyed being at high tide, but now the race is tightening and the injuries are adding up—Matt Kemp is going to be out until at least mid-June, according to the injury report and all anecdotal reports say it will be longer. Ted Lilly will miss a couple starts with a shoulder problem. It’s well past time for Chad Billingsley to stop pitching like a back-end starter (4.09 ERA in a pitcher’s paradise).

Arizona (25-29): The Diamondbacks are a lot like the Angels were a couple weeks ago. You could see they were playing better, that they had stopped the bleeding, but a real move up the standings hadn’t yet come. LAA got it put together recently and Arizona now has the chance to do the same. They’ve gotten good years from Jason Kubel and Paul Goldschmidt, and now Justin Upton and Aaron Hill need to get their bats going. On the pitching staff, Daniel Hudson has only made five starts due to injury and has a 4.65 ERA in that quintet. He needs to pitch better, as doe Ian Kennedy and Trevor Cahill. All of which is very possible, so a team that’s gone 9-6 since its low point in mid-May can get back in striking distance.

Colorado (23-30): I ripped this team apart a couple weeks ago, so now I have to come back and eat crow. The Rockies’ offense has gotten unleashed and is now the top run-scoring machine in the National League. Carlos Gonzalez is batting .332 with 14 home runs. Troy Tulowitzki has to make a brief stop on the DL with a groin injury, but is finally swinging the bat well. Michael Cuddyer has been productive and Dexter Fowler’s .400/.582 line is almost as stunning as what Cabrera is doing in San Francisco. The problem is closing out their chances to win games. While closer Rafael Betancourt is fine, the rest of the bullpen is an astonishing 1-of-11 on save chances.

San Diego (18-37): Offensively, they rely on Yonder Alonso, Chase Headley and Will Venable. The problem with this is nothing against those players, especially Alonso who is proving to be a nice line-drive hitter with a good career ahead of him. The problem is that none of them hit for power and the rest of the offense is awful. As for the pitching…in a series with the Cubs last week, they not only lost all three, but gave up an average of eight runs a game. What else needs to be said?